Mold prompts inspections, tests at rec center next to St. Charles high school

District owns building; problem with mold a decade ago shut campus for a year

August 02, 2012|By Kate Thayer, Chicago Tribune reporter

The St. Charles East High School kitchen shown in March 2002 during anti-mold work. (Mario Petitti, Chicago Tribune)

Mold testing is under way at a recreation center next to St. Charles East High School, the site of a mold problem that shut the school in 2001 and prompted a class-action lawsuit.

A painter working at the Norris Recreation Center, 1050 Dunham Road, found the mold Wednesday evening on the wall of a racquetball court, District 303 Superintendent Donald Schlomann said Thursday. The district doesn't operate the nonprofit recreation center but owns the building.

The building was in the midst of a two-week shutdown for routine maintenance, Schlomann said. Three painters, who were the only workers there, were sent home after the mold was found.

Environmental consultants are taking air samples for testing and further inspecting the building, he said.

Officials weren't sure if the mold had spread beyond the section of wall where it was found.

St. Charles East High School will also be tested. Although the buildings have a connecting hallway, they do not share a ventilation system, Schlomann said.

"We want to make sure everybody is safe," he said, adding

that he doesn't expect a delay in the start of school, scheduled for Aug. 22.

Complaints over air quality at St. Charles East, which opened in the 1970s, date to the mid-1980s. Although some repairs were made in the late 1990s, the school was closed in April 2001 when potentially dangerous mold was found growing on its walls. It reopened for the start of the 2002-03 school year after a $30 million repair and remodeling project.

Schlomann said the district has since settled claims filed by former students and staff, who complained of breathing problems, nausea, sinus infections and other problems.

The district won't know how much it will need to spend to repair the Norris Center until all inspections and tests are completed, he said.

The district inspects and conducts tests after anyone reports signs of mold in any of its buildings, Schlomann said. That policy was adopted after the incident at St. Charles East in 2001, he said.

"It's the only district I've been in that has this procedure," Schlomann said.

No one before had reported mold suspicions at the Norris Center, he said.